Review of Blue Sky Kingdom: An Epic Family Journey to the Heart of the Himalaya by Bruce Kirkby

*Blue Sky Kingdom* by Bruce Kirkby (2020). Published by Pegasus Books.

I’ve been on such a strange kick lately when it comes to what kind of literature I consume and where it comes from. My recent obsession has been the Himalayas and Tibet, and I keep swearing that I am going to one day go around there for a trip. If I end up landing the Fulbright like I hope to, then I’ll probably spend some time in Nepal while in South Asia.

Anyways, I wandered to the very back section of my library in search of books on history to read, and I was pleasantly surprised to see this memoir in the tiny section on Asia. I had never heard of Kirkby before, but decided it was worth giving a chance.

So I checked the book out, and ended up reading it pretty quickly if we’re being honest. The writing in this one is so smooth and accessible, so when I was ploughing through it, I didn’t have any trouble at all and didn’t really stop.

I think it is important to know going into these kinds of books, though, that these are white people going into a Buddhist monastery, and I often wonder how this story would be different if they weren’t who they were.

Anyways, let’s get into the review.

A Canadian family heads to a Buddhist monastery in search of peace.

Blue Sky Kingdom begins with this premise: Bruce Kirkby is living with his wife and two kids in Canada, and is grappling with a serious addiction to smartphones.

Their lives are consumed by screens and essentially not being mindful, which kickstarts this entire journey for the family to try and go abroad to either Tibet or a Himalayan region in order to learn more about Buddhism and what it means to be a present human being.

The first leg of their trip begins on a boat to South Korea, where they then will travel across China before reaching their final destination in India: a Buddhist temple in the region of Ladakh.

So the family packs up their bags and prepares to go abroad. For a chunk of their journey they are going to be followed by a camera crew, who ends up interviewing them about the process of getting to Ladakh. There are some ups and downs while in China and South Korea, and when they end up at the temple in India, it’s definitely a rough adjustment for the family at first.

Not only do they have to adjust to rural life, but they are in a completely new different environment culturally and there’s a language barrier for the kids at the monastery. The family now has to eat the meals the rest of the monks eat, and Kirkby’s wife is one of the only women living in this particular temple now.

There’s also one of their sons, who is autistic in a part of the world that might not have the same conceptions of what this means from what they’re used to.

Their three months in the monastery truly is the big focus of the book, and it really does transform them. While there certainly are the ups and downs, described by Kirkby, there are many incredible people they meet along the way who the world would not even know about due to the fact they live on the mountains and in the rural countryside.

This is a place where he has to find and pay a dude in a nearby village, trekking on foot, in order to get some Internet to scrounge up a potential visa situation for their kind benefactor.

They grow close to the Lama they’re staying with, and one of the sad revelations at the end of the memoir is that they all might not ever see each other again, nor will they experience such a bond they had during the course of this novel.

The family tries to get a visa for the Lama to come to Canada with them, so he can come and see a part of their world, but because he is a Buddhist monk from Ladakh, he is denied a visa and unable to come with them, despite the family having bought him a plane ticket and arranged everything.

It’s so sad when this happens in the memoir, and it’s an unfortunate reality many face in contemporary society due to where they come from.

Overall Thoughts

For me, it was truly fascinating about reading the interactions between the locals and the family, and how they managed to create deep connections despite the seemingly vast cultural and spiritual differences between them in the very beginning.

There still are some big differences, such as how they hide a sick boy and the Lama demands he come to class, but this is a way of life that’s dying. Soon the phones will be in everyone’s hands whether we want them to or not, making it something that might be of the distant past in twenty years.

Anyways, this was a really good read for me, and I suggest it!

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